Steering wheel buttons.

[Max_Headroom]

When i switch the lights on the steering wheel buttons do not illuminate is this normal, i ask as in my last car they did.

[Roy124]

Yaris Cross Excel - Starship Enterprise or Blackpool illiminations, take your pic.

[Ralph H]

I used to have a 2019 icon tech and the steering wheel buttons didn’t light up. You have to learn to use them by feel !

[MikeSh]

I don't think they are lit on our 2018.

TBH if a button deserves a place on that prime real estate it should be easily remembered, found and operated without having to look at them.

Had a car a few years ago where those buttons were all beautifully smooth and flush, with barely a crack between them. Pretty ... but pretty much impossible to press the right one without looking 😡 

[Max_Headroom]

10 minutes ago, MikeSh said:

TBH if a button deserves a place on that prime real estate it should be easily remembered, found and operated

 

No worries it doesn't matter that they don't  I was just wondering if they were supposed to which I now know they are not. 

[Cyker]

1 hour ago, MikeSh said:

I don't think they are lit on our 2018.

TBH if a button deserves a place on that prime real estate it should be easily remembered, found and operated without having to look at them.

Had a car a few years ago where those buttons were all beautifully smooth and flush, with barely a crack between them. Pretty ... but pretty much impossible to press the right one without looking 😡 

The Mk4 has so many buttons it is tricky to press the right one without looking sometimes! I wish they had some braille-style bumps or something.

The Mk1 had some controls behind the steering wheel but had bumps and a dips so it was easy to tell which one you were pressing!

 

[bathtub tom]

I think the pips are provided for blind folk😎

[flash22]

They don't light i have looked into this in some depth, i cant find a manufacturer for the key caps and havent found what other cars they are fitted to

 

 

[Roy124]

15 hours ago, Cyker said:

The Mk4 has so many buttons it is tricky to press the right one without looking sometimes! I wish they had some braille-style bumps or something.

The Mk1 had some controls behind the steering wheel but had bumps and a dips so it was easy to tell which one you were pressing!

 

The MY21 Yaris Cross, similar to a Yaris I think, has the switches all in ridged recesses except for the much larger Cancel button on the right of the cluster.  The bottom left pair are upper CC and lower speed limiter but not that 'natural' feel.  Above these is the interval switch. 

[TonyHSD]

On my auris I have buttons on steering illuminated but in different colour from the rest of the car interior., perhaps that model from that era was orange lights dash and when they introduced hybrid variant in 2010 they didn’t change the buttons but only dashboard lights in green 😂, good thing is that I don’t use any of these and not been bothered. 👌

[flash22]

up to 14 is all the odd colours orange and green, later cars are blue

[Cyker]

4 hours ago, Roy124 said:

The MY21 Yaris Cross, similar to a Yaris I think, has the switches all in ridged recesses except for the much larger Cancel button on the right of the cluster.  The bottom left pair are upper CC and lower speed limiter but not that 'natural' feel.  Above these is the interval switch. 

Yes I believe the Yaris and YarisX use the same steering wheel.

I will say the buttons feel a bit rubbish and cheap tho' - Could have used a bit more work with tactile feel of them; They don't feel like they will last the life of the car. I use the skip-track button on mine a lot and lets just say I really hope the steering wheel is covered under the Relax warranty!!

I use logitech trackballs to try and fend off RSI and CTS, and I always have to replace the microswitches and buttons after a few months because they wear out, and the buttons on the wheel have a similar feel...  

Might be okay tho' - It'd be typical of Toyota to pick their switchgear for longevity but totally ignore feel  

(Unlike Logitech, who I swear are using fake Omron micro and snap-action switches in their gear - Would explain why they fail so quickly! Compared to the replacements I get from RS, the originals look unbelievably fake... The replacements also last several years rather than the 4-5 months of the originals!!)

 

3 hours ago, flash22 said:

up to 14 is all the odd colours orange and green, later cars are blue

Aww that's a shame - I'd have liked some different colours, for both aesthetic and grouping reasons!

Almost every backlight in the Mk4 seems to be blue, which is unfortunate since blue is supposedly one of the worst colours to light stuff up in, as it apparently increases eye-strain and fatigue in low light!

 

[TonyHSD]

2 hours ago, Cyker said:

Yes I believe the Yaris and YarisX use the same steering wheel.

I will say the buttons feel a bit rubbish and cheap tho' - Could have used a bit more work with tactile feel of them; They don't feel like they will last the life of the car. I use the skip-track button on mine a lot and lets just say I really hope the steering wheel is covered under the Relax warranty!!

I use logitech trackballs to try and fend off RSI and CTS, and I always have to replace the microswitches and buttons after a few months because they wear out, and the buttons on the wheel have a similar feel...  

Might be okay tho' - It'd be typical of Toyota to pick their switchgear for longevity but totally ignore feel  

(Unlike Logitech, who I swear are using fake Omron micro and snap-action switches in their gear - Would explain why they fail so quickly! Compared to the replacements I get from RS, the originals look unbelievably fake... The replacements also last several years rather than the 4-5 months of the originals!!)

 

Aww that's a shame - I'd have liked some different colours, for both aesthetic and grouping reasons!

Almost every backlight in the Mk4 seems to be blue, which is unfortunate since blue is supposedly one of the worst colours to light stuff up in, as it apparently increases eye-strain and fatigue in low light!

 

White or light green seems to be the easier on the eyes. 

[MikeSh]

4 hours ago, Cyker said:

blue is supposedly one of the worst colours to light stuff up in, as it apparently increases eye-strain and fatigue in low light!

I've noticed the last several years that my blue sensitivity in the centre (cones) of my sight is far lower than in the periphery (rods) area. So I might notice a bight blue LED to one side but when I look directly at it, it looks dim.

I don't know if it's my age. or just that the prevalence of blue indicators these days has made me notice. (The first time I saw it was a pair of powered Speakers I had with blue LED indicators on the front. Now I see it everywhere ... )

No problem with awareness of emergency services before you ask 😛

[Max_Headroom]

I have a feeling the answer will be no so i won't start a new thread as its kind of on topic -

Can anyone tell me if there is a way of changing the speedo and rev counter etc brightness?

[Cyker]

You usually can change the dash brightness but how to do it varies wildly between models.

In newer cars it can usually be set via the dash menus, using the Steering Wheel Controls (<--- Totally on topic   ), but in older cars you usually need to do some messed up voodoo to do it.

e.g. IIRC in my dad's Verso you have to keep pressing the trip counter button until a bunch of lines appeared then press and hold the button and the mysterious lines would change to represent brightness levels of the display while you held the button, then you had to let go when it was on the desired brightness; It was very intuitive (not)

My Mk1 had an actual button to control the brightness (A very wide selection of Bright and Not Bright  ), while the Mk2 I think was more like the Verso's arcane voodoo.

If there's an electronic manual available for your car on the Toyota site, just download it and search for brightness and hopefully it will have some semi-intelligible instructions...!

 

34 minutes ago, MikeSh said:

I've noticed the last several years that my blue sensitivity in the centre (cones) of my sight is far lower than in the periphery (rods) area. So I might notice a bight blue LED to one side but when I look directly at it, it looks dim.

I don't know if it's my age. or just that the prevalence of blue indicators these days has made me notice. (The first time I saw it was a pair of powered speakers I had with blue LED indicators on the front. Now I see it everywhere ... )

No problem with awareness of emergency services before you ask 😛

If you look at screens a lot it may just be desensitized; A lot of displays, esp. TVs, have a high blue shift because it makes the picture look brighter and more vibrant.

The blue-end of the spectrum is higher-energy , and tends to 'wear' things disproportionately to other projected colours. (You can literally bleach things with the violet/ultra-violet end of the spectrum! I had a yellow post-it note covering an excessively bright blue LED on a new server and found it had been bleached white around the LED a few months later   Imagine what that'd do to your eyes over a long period!!  )

 

[MikeSh]

2 hours ago, Max_Headroom said:

I have a feeling the answer will be no so i won't start a new thread as its kind of on topic -

Can anyone tell me if there is a way of changing the speedo and rev counter etc brightness?

From the manual - if you have the colour display, with the central info panel:

The brightness of the instrument cluster lights can be adjusted.
Display the instrument cluster light control by pressing the “TRIP” switch.
Then, press and hold the switch.
Adjust the brightness to the desired level by pressing the switch.

I've no idea if that works - it sounds a bit mad.

It also says:

The brightness level of the meters when the surroundings are day mode and
night mode can be adjusted individually.
• Day mode: When the headlight switch is off or when the headlight switch
is on but the surrounding area is bright.
• Night mode: When the headlight switch is on and the surrounding area is
dark. 

So you can only adjust the 'night' setting when it's dark.

[flash22]

Press the trip button on the wheel for 2 seconds, and it shows it on the display where the trip info usually is

[Max_Headroom]

Thanks everyone.

[Max_Headroom]

On 9/23/2022 at 7:08 PM, MikeSh said:

 

Deleted

[Max_Headroom]

1 hour ago, Max_Headroom said:

Thanks everyone.

I have found if you press the trip button 3 times from the ODO screen you get the brightness level indicator if you then hold the button in it drops it 1/4 each time until it ends at full again.

[MikeSh]

This is another example of Toyota's Yaris manual being very poorly written. It's given me a WTF moment on more than one occasion before.

What I quoted earlier seemed lacking because you'd think that just pressing the Trip button would cause a Trip function of some type. So 3 times makes more sense - shame that didn't get to the page.